Your guide to email marketing as a builders’ merchant

Article topics

1. What are the benefits of email marketing?
2. Is it legal to send people email marketing content?
3. 10 steps to getting started with email marketing

Email marketing is an unsung hero when it comes to marketing your builders’ merchant business.

You can use it to encourage existing customers to spend more, persuade new customers to buy from you for the first time, and best of all… It’s low-cost!

If you’re new to the concept of email campaigns, this guide will tell you everything you need to know.

Together we’ll look at why you should implement email marketing, how to ensure your emails keep your business compliant, and how to create campaigns your customers want to read.

What are the benefits of email marketing?

Email marketing has one of the best returns on investment around. For every £1 you invest in your campaigns, you can get up to £36 back.

This makes email marketing a great starting point if your aim is to maximise your profits.

Here are some other reasons why you should invest in email marketing if you’re not already doing so:

You’re reaching out to the customers who are most likely to buy

With email marketing, you’re targeting customers who have either bought from your business or are interested in buying from your business.

As a result, you’re more likely to see conversions than in other marketing channels where you’re promoting your business to cold customers.

You can send highly targeted emails

One of the fantastic things about email campaigns is that you can personalise them to appeal to highly-focused subsets of customers.

As well as using personalisation to suggest products customers may be interested in buying, you can use segmentation to divide your key mailing list into smaller, more targeted groups.

(We’ll talk about segmentation in more detail later in this article.)

Your email address list is your own

If you build a following through social media, there’s the risk that you could lose your hard-earned followers if your account is compromised or banned.

However, the email addresses you collect are yours to keep – even if you move to a new website or email marketing platform.

As you have complete control over this data, you have the reassurance that it’s accurate and relevant, and can use it to create personalised content for your customers.

Is it legal to send people email marketing content?

To answer this question, we’re going to look at two different types of emails: promotional and transactional.

Transactional emails are ones you send customers about their orders. Let’s say someone buys something from your builders’ merchant website. You’d send them an email to:

• Confirm their order
• Let them know their order has been dispatched
• Let them know when their order will be delivered or ready to collect
• Ask them for feedback about their order

If someone provides their email address at checkout, you can send them transactional messages concerning their order.

Promotional (or marketing) emails are ones you send to advertise your business and promote the products you sell. For example, to showcase your latest product line or a summer sales event.

In order to comply with regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), you must:

• Get explicit consent from customers before you send them emails (customers must ‘opt-in’ to emails rather than ‘opt-out’)
• Only use the data you receive for the purpose it was specified for (we recommend having an up-to-date privacy policy on your site which highlights which data you collect and what you do with it)
• Unsubscribe customers from your mailing lists if they ask you to (a one-click ‘unsubscribe’ option at the bottom of the email is the best way to do this)
• Provide customers with a copy of the personal data you have on file about them if they ask for it
• Erase a customer’s personal data if they ask you to

Centralising your inventory means that customers can buy what they need, regardless of whether they’re at your store or placing an order online.

If you send over 5,000 emails a day to personal email addresses, there are additional rules you must follow.

10 steps to getting started with email marketing

Did you know that the average person receives about 120 emails a day?

This is especially true of tradespeople, who get lots of quote requests, website enquiries, and messages from suppliers!

This makes it vital to send an email that stands out and, most importantly, doesn’t go into the spam folder.

Our expert email marketing team has put together a 10-step guide to the perfect email campaign, from planning and execution, all the way through to review!

1. Understand your goals

Before you start your email marketing campaign, you need to understand what you want to achieve from it. This will ensure you create the right content and focus on the right customers.

Think about:

• Your target audience. Who you want to ultimately sign up for your emails
• Your end goal. For example, do you want to sell specific product lines, boost your revenue, or retain customers for longer?
• How your email marketing campaigns will align with your other marketing campaigns. Ensuring everything is consistent can increase trust in your business

Top tip: Any goals you create should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.

Saying ‘I want to increase revenue through email marketing campaigns’ isn’t a SMART goal.

However, saying ‘I want to increase revenue on the website by 20% by the end of quarter three through segmented email campaigns targeting existing trade customers’ is!

2. Choose your email marketing platform

While you can send email marketing campaigns through an email service provider like Gmail or Outlook, we recommend using a dedicated email marketing platform.

Email marketing platforms allow you to:

• Monitor metrics like open rate and click-through rate (we’ll explain what these are at the end of the article)
• Manage your email marketing list and unsubscribe requests
• Build customer profiles
• Apply segments and personalisation
• Integrate your existing marketing and eCommerce tools for extra functionality
• Automate your email marketing processes to save time
• Send accompanying SMS marketing messages

Some platforms also provide additional services, including customer relationship management (CRM) and landing page creation.

There are lots of different email marketing platforms including Mailchimp, Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign, and MailerLite.

The platform that’s right for you will depend on your budget, your needs, and your skill level – some platforms have steeper learning curves than others.

Top tip: If your email marketing platform doesn’t work out or suit your needs, that’s okay. You can export your contact list and import it into another platform.

(If you do this, we recommend letting your customers know and updating the privacy policy on your website.)

3. Collect your emails

As mentioned earlier in the article, if you’re sending promotional emails, customers must opt into your email marketing lists.

The easiest, most compliant way to do this is through an email opt-in form. You can place this on your homepage, in your website footer, or even in a pop-up on specific pages on your website.

You can also ask people if they want to sign up to receive marketing emails during the checkout process or when they create a trade account.

When creating your opt-in form, it’s important to keep the information you ask for to a minimum. Many forms we see just ask for the basics, like a name (for personalisation purposes) and an email address.

If your form has too many fields, like the example below, there’s the risk that customers may not subscribe.

Keep an eye on your sign-up rates. If they’re low, it may mean you need to reassess the information you ask for.

Top tip: A good way to encourage customers to sign up for your email mailing list is to give them an incentive. For example, you can offer them a discount or free shipping on their next order.

4. Segment your messages

The more targeted and personalised you can make your email campaigns, the more likely that customers will respond positively to them.

Segmenting your email list so you can tailor your content to specific customer needs to be an essential part of your marketing strategy.

According to Moosend, segmentation results in double the amount of clicks and 760% more revenue!

You can segment your messages in two ways. The first is to use the data you gather in your email marketing campaigns.

Most email marketing platforms allow you to build segments based on:

• How long ago people signed up
• Where people signed up from (if you don’t ask for this information, email marketing platforms can guess this based on an IP address)
• How often and frequently people engage with your emails
• How much people spend on your website
• How many orders people have placed
• If people have bought specific products or products in certain categories

For example, let’s say you want to arrange early access to your Black Friday online sale.

You can identify your most frequent customers, or people who bought from your Black Friday sale last year, and send them an invite.

The second way is to ask customers to choose a segment (or multiple segments) themselves.

For example, Lawsons asks people if they are a trade customer when they sign up. This way, Lawsons can send different content to trade customers and domestic customers.

JT Atkinson takes this one step further by messaging customers when they sign up to the company mailing list, asking them what product categories they want to hear about.

Top tip: Remember that you don’t have to create segments for every single customer or product. Focus on a handful of segments that are most likely to help you meet your business goals and drive profits.

5. Choose the right day and time to send emails

The time and day you send your email campaigns can have a significant impact on how customers react to them.

If you’re selling to businesses, typically the best time to send your emails is during working hours – Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.

However, as a builders’ merchant, you’re selling to people carrying out DIY projects during weekends and bank holidays, as well as tradespeople who may be working outside of standard office hours. This means your optimal sending time may be a little different.

The best thing to do is to experiment.

Try sending email campaigns on different days and during different hours, and see which lead to the best results. You can also use A/B testing, which we’ll talk about in a little more detail later.

Top tip: Some email marketing platforms (for example, Mailchimp) will analyse your existing audience data to determine the best time to send your emails.

6. Create high-quality content

Your email content can make the difference between customers opening your email and buying your products, and deciding to unsubscribe from your mailing list.

The email campaigns you send should be relevant to your reader, clear and concise, and look good on both desktop and mobile. Over 40% of emails are now opened on mobile devices.

We love this highly topical email campaign that JT Atkinson sent after Storm Floris – encouraging customers to repair and reinforce their fences.

When creating your emails, consider your:

• Subject line. This is what encourages customers to read through to your main content. Keep it short, add personalisation (for example, your customer’s name), and demonstrate how your email will add value to their day
• Email copy. Show that you understand the challenges your customers face and how you can solve them through products targeted to their needs
• Branding. Use your logo as well as your company font and colours to tie your email into your other marketing and increase trust with customers. A style guide will ensure all your marketing is consistent
• Images. Add high-quality, relevant images to get your customers attention. Make sure any images you used are optimised for speed and mobile use
• Call-to-action. Finish with a call-to-action button that compels customers to visit your website and buy your products

Top tip: Trust signals in your emails can be a great way to establish trust in your business and give new customers the gentle nudge they need to buy from you. Think reviews, testimonials, product guarantees, and user-generated content.

7. Implement automation

Email automation lets you automatically send pre-written emails to customers in response to specific triggers and events. It’s a fantastic way of targeting customers at the right time and increasing the chances of conversion.

Most email marketing platforms offer automation tools, where you can use pre-built automation templates or create your own.

You can use email automation to:

• Welcome customers when they sign up for your mailing list
• Say thank you for buying a product
• Encourage customers to write a review after buying a product
• Remind customers that they have items in their shopping cart – cart abandonment emails encourage nearly a quarter of customers to come back to your site
• Let customers know that a product is back in stock
• Recommend personalised products that customers might like
• Reach out to inactive customers and encourage them to engage with your emails

Top tip: Regularly review your automation flows to make sure they’re working well and you’re not bombarding customers with too many messages. If your click rate is low, you may need to revise your email and/or your flow.

8. Use A/B testing

Making even the smallest changes to your emails can drastically impact your open, click, and conversion rates.

A/B testing (or split testing) makes it easy to keep track of which changes have the most impact.

Let’s say you’re not sure whether to include prices in your emails. You can create two virtually-identical emails, one with prices, one without. You then send each email to half your email audience, and see which leads to the most clicks and conversions.

You can use A/B testing on any element of your emails, from your subject lines to your call-to-action buttons.

Most email marketing platforms come with built-in A/B testing tools which manage the testing process for you. You can also use specialist A/B testing software.

Top tip: Stick to testing just two factors in each A/B test – this makes it easier to see which factor customers respond best to!

9. Carry out email hygiene

Some builders’ merchants fall into the trap that the more email subscribers they have, the better. However, having lots of subscribers isn’t always a good thing.

Sending emails to inactive addresses, as well as to customers who no longer engage with you, can lower your sender reputation. This can increase the chances of your email campaigns getting marked as spam.

Email hygiene is when you regularly review your mailing list to remove subscribers who no longer engage with your content. This increases your engagement rates and shows your internet service provider that you’re a trustworthy business.

Most email marketing platforms will carry out email hygiene checks for you, for example, removing email addresses that no longer exist or are misspelt.

However, we also recommend carrying out your own checks to ensure your lists stay as squeaky clean as possible.

Top tip: Implementing a ‘sunset flow’ is a great way to remove non-responsive customers.

This is when you reach out to customers who no longer engage with your emails, encouraging them to respond. If they don’t, you can take them off your list or send messages to them less frequently.

10. Monitor your email performance

Like your other marketing channels, you can’t just ‘set and forget’ your email campaigns. You need to regularly review them to ensure they’re optimised for maximum conversions.

Email marketing platforms provide detailed stats for each campaign you send, so you can see if your messages are resonating with customers. Let’s take a look at some of the key metrics you’ll want to monitor.

While we have included average metrics here, the best company to benchmark against is yourself.

Keep an eye on your stats and if they start to decrease (or increase in the case of unsubscribes), you can take action to put things right.

Top tip: Don’t forget to compare your email campaigns with your other marketing channels (for example, social media and pay-per-click advertising) to see which are driving the most conversions on your site.

Xigen: Email marketing campaigns that get your customers clicking

Email marketing is one of the best ways to keep customers up-to-date with your builders’ merchant store and encourage them to buy. The key is to create regular, authentic, personalised content that customers want to read.

Need a little help creating stand-out email marketing campaigns?

We have over twenty years of experience planning, building, and managing email marketing campaigns in the builders’ merchants sector. Work with us, and we’ll construct a campaign that increases trust in your store and boosts your sales.

Get in touch with us today and take the first step towards transforming how you use email as a business.